Monthly Archives: June 2012

Another Squam has come and gone, and now, four years in, I believe I can say I have had exactly the Squam experience I was looking for.  My classes were perfect, I had a fantastic mix of old friends and new faces in my cabin, a blend of class and downtime that felt just right.

There was so damn much good this year that I cannot even begin to figure out where to begin telling you about it all.

There was the yarnbombing.

Last year I was “in charge” of the bombing, but we didn’t collect much, and so it was mostly limited to a few little doo-dads at the main lodge.  This year, people sent me lots of stuff, so we had so much more.  My friend Kat made hundreds of pom-poms that we strung from the trees (and railings and eaves and knit i-cord garland), so that everywhere you went, the trees were wearing pompoms.  She and I spent hours in the woods on Wednesday decorating.  We flagged every cabin where there was a class with a bit of yarn-y goodness;  we marked some of the paths through camp to help people find their way through the woods, we decorated the hell out of those woods.  I loved it when people gushed to us about how awesome it was because they knew it was our handiwork, but I loved it even more when I overheard people charmed flat by it when they had no idea who I was.  Best of all was that lots of other people got into it, so even I got to be charmed and surprised when I came upon pieces that we hadn’t put up at all.  Stephanie made owls that she his all over camp for people to find.  Someone else made beautiful paint chip mobiles to float in the breeze.  I didn’t get a picture of my favorite wee tiny bomb, but OldScarf did.

There were my classes.

There were only two classes this year, and I was skeptical of that diminishment going in.  While we may have lacking in quantity, we got back in holy crap my brain just exploded RIGHT out of my head awesomeness.  I took a beginner’s photo class with Thea, who might be the most patient saint walking the earth.  She helped me figure out how to actually USE my wonderful camera that I was ready to throw in a lake because I could NOT get a decent picture out of the thing. (protip: the A on the dial was NOT the automatic mode.  Also, note to self: for god sake’s woman, RTFM.  Seriously.)  I walked out of class floating because I felt so empowered to start learning how to take great pictures now that I understood how to use my tools.

My second class was a design class with Fiona Ellis where we didn’t learn the mechanics of designing a garment but spent 6 hours in an exercise of using the world around us to spark creative ideas and turning those ideas into concepts that could be put into garment design once they had been wrangled into a useable form.  This was a re-inforcement of what I’d already been starting to do on my own, both giving it some guiderails and validating it as not-crazy.  Her discussion of her own process and her technical knowledge made me feel like I was on the right track with my own work.  When she gave us permission to swatch something 20 times before getting something we were happy with, my type-A perfectionist brain was thrilled; having thought that my inability was somehow a reflection of how I wasn’t cut out for this work, it was an immense relief to hear that it’s a completely normal part of the process.

In the Friday morning downtime, I took a yoga class (all yoga classes should be in front of a fire with the lapping of a lake in your ears), knitting for a bit on the four-knitter-at-once community blanket, and wandering in the woods with my camera.  Saturday afternoon was spent mostly on the dock and the porch, enjoying the perfect early summer day.  I almost made it to a nap on Saturday, but the lure of spending time with friends won out.  It was absolutely the right call, no matter how sleepy I was.  The art fair on Saturday night was full of wonderful things, which was not a surprise – it is ALWAYS full of beautiful things.  I left with some beautiful fiber (dyed by my cabinmate Renee, a beautiful seam ripper with a hand-turned wooden handle that fit my hand just so, a Christmas present for someone awesome and inspiration for two more presents for dear wee ones.

There were my cabinmates.

This year, I broke with my group of friends that I had cabined with in previous years.  While I still love them all dearly, I needed to open things up a bit and mingle more.  I ended up in a group that was half old friends and half new faces, and we had a great time together.  I got exactly what I wanted, and it was wonderful.  I sat with a different mix of people at every meal, and there was always room for someone new.

There was an amazing performance by Jonatha Brooke of her new musical play, telling the story of her journey caring for her mother through the late stages of her Alzheimer’s disease.  There was walking through the woods in an unexpected downpour.  There was dipping my feet in the lake and desperately wishing that *this* year I *had* brought my bathing suit.  There was laughter and tears and connection and peace.

Every year, this retreat get better.  It doesn’t seem possible that it could and yet.  And yet.  There is magic there that I lack the words to describe.  Where else might you find a wee knitted owl waiting for you in the wood?